Numbers

That's all we've been seeing and hearing these past few days, right? So you're sick of them, right? Well, these aren't those numbers. Time for a little change of pace.

Let's start with some good news, the number 6 I got in the cardiologist's office this morning. I love their scale. It's surrounded by a walker for those of us who sometimes have issues with balance. It's also got the long horizontal bars that have weights hanging from them, sliding from notch to notch. No guesswork as to how accurate it is, no needing somebody else to get your weight because it's reported in metric on an electronic system. When it balances, that's you.

I started at the usual place, that particular set of 20-pound notches which never changes. Except today it did.  I was 2 pounds more than that notch a couple months ago, last time I stopped in. Adjusting, I started sliding the other bar up the 1 pound notches. WOW! A quick little bit of math, and I'm down 6 pounds! This keeps happening, even though either I think I'm gaining and I stay the same, or I think I'm gaining and I lose a bit. It's not so much I'm actually trying to lose, but the activity level has increased - just ask my back yard and my sore legs at bedtime keeping me from dropping off - and I'm back to counting carbs (more) faithfully, now that I have a blood sugar meter. Neither is counting calories, it's just life happening. Still happening.

Now for a new number: 2. I just ordered two baby plants of the kind I thought I'd bought about a week ago. However, it had a single bloom. One tiny little all-yellow bloom. Still not what I wanted, though I'll keep it in its spot along the back fence. When it gets really going, those little blooms will bring in bees. Possibly hummers, but for sure bees. However, since I'm still looking for that very specific plant, I went online and found a grower. Right down in Benson, AZ. You know, home of Kartchner Caverns, a must-visit living cave. They ship in special plant containers, and guarantee to make good if shipping causes damage, provided you send them a picture. Just in case, I ordered two. There's another space on a different side of the fence where something as big as a pair of them can flourish, given enough prior work. Now, I thought I was done with all the digging and watering and planting and fencing to keep out rabbits. Apparently I was wrong. Again! 

I won't give you that number, though.

Instead, here's another number: 3. While planting those orange-blooming aloes last week, I realized that my ponytail palm needs a companion in that spot on the north side of the house. The other one is doing great, while the one under the front window - same side, more sun due to different roof configuration - is suffering from sun blasting through the summers. It's too big to move now, and I'm happy to start small and let a new one grow in the better spot. They will become a pair of taller accents among the aloes. So I went to a garden center looking for ponytails. Sure they had them, as trees! But hey, 50% off sale on large trees now, so only $150.00! Not only too expensive but completely unwieldy. So, since I was heading there anyway, Wallmart. After persuading an employee to unlock (!) the plants section, none were on offer. They have previously supplied several in the past, just not now. So, yet another garden center, where I had a choice between $75 big ones, and $13, 4" pots of multiple trunk babies.  Well, the babies, of course. Right now they are soaking up water, with planning anticipated next week.

That's because of another number: 2. Our rabbits are so greedy down here that they eat even these, and even after they are well grown. So I need a chicken wire cage for it. Not "2" you say? That's because the other cage will host the plants being shipped. However, currently all our cages are hosting other plants, so I need to get out in the yard and uncage another established plant in order to spread the joy. I just did that with a plant that came home years ago with white blossoms rather than purple, and half died this summer. It is currently about a foot tall, with branches cluttering up the yard next to it, but their removal allowed the cage to be slid up over the remains of the plant for this other use. As for the seriously pruned plant, Mother Nature will decide if it survives.  I don't care. It was spectacular when it bloomed once - two days before a hail storm. You know, back when we had rain and stuff. It also played host to a very tall weed for a couple years, growing straight up out of its center, impossible to remove or kill. So yes, I'm holding a grudge.

The other bush I need to uncage really needs pruning as it's struggling to support what grew last year before it quit raining. It won't get such a severe clipping, so there will be a lot more physical work involved in removing this cage. Apparently that will do me some good. Aside from new sets of puncture holes in my arms, of course.

So far these have all been pretty small numbers. Let's jump to some bigger ones. For a modest jump, let's start with 11. You may recall months ago I was recording and blogging about covid numbers. Just because I quit hassling you with them doesn't mean I quit recording them. No, it's been a daily habit, keeping track of several sets in columns in a multi-page (now) file on my desktop, each day's changes. One of the incidentals was watching where Arizona stood in relation to other states in terms of highest case counts. A while ago we were 7th highest in the country. Then we gradually got surpassed by other states. Today we slid down to only 11th worst. Our daily counts are starting to climb again, but we've had plenty of days in the 3-digits of new cases. Too many others are doing as badly as 4,000+ to 8,000+ daily cases, and have overtaken us. Maricopa County instituted a mask mandate months ago, and our cases dropped and held relatively steady. Until just these last few days. While we are increasing our daily counts like everybody else, we're just not as bad right now. Arizona's relative ranking, from when I first noted it, changed as follows:

6/28: 10th   7/5: 8th   7/9: 7th    7/20 8th    8/16: 7th    10/7: 8th     10/19: 9th    11/4" 10th    11/6: 11th.

I follow Minnesota counties where my kids and brother live. Hennepin numbers started getting recorded after George Lloyd was murdered and the BLM movement spread. I was curious how the protests would affect case counts, and at first they didn't, much. Now it's going crazy there, 40,559 cases, 1016 deaths, but I have trouble pinning it on the protests because the numbers took so long to rise after that. Beltrami county started rising once summer tourism took hold, along with their death rate at a faster rate than many other rural counties with similar case numbers, today at 1154 cases and 13 deaths.  Chisago County held steady for so long, but now is jumping way up there in cases at 1561. Surprisingly, the death count is still sitting at two.

The latest numbers I started tracking were after the cases for the country started their recent dramatic climb, following all those super-spreader Trump events. Recent analysis by those with more information than I have directly linked the steepest rises to those events/locations. Here are my recorded U.S. daily increases, starting with October 28, as reported by Worldometer, which I have always trusted to have the best information available:

10/28:  91,630    10/29:  104,831     10/30:  101,461    10/31:   86,293    11/1:  71,321    11/2:  88,905   11/3:  93,947    11/4:  106,453    11/5:  118,204   11/6:  132,540.

Remember how Trump said those cases would just magically disappear on the 4th because the libs were lying about them to get votes? Yeah, me too.